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REPORT OF 

ARTHUR D. LITTLE 

Official Chemist 



OF THE 



American Paper and Pulp Association 

READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
February 6th, 1908 



Gin .. 

Author 



Report of 
ARTHUR D. LITTLE 

Official Chemist of the 
American Paper and Pulp Association 



The most significant development of the year in paper making- 
has been the serious and general inquiry all over the world for 
new sources of paper stock. Wood is undoubtedly destined to 
maintain a position as one of the chief sources of supply for an 
indefinite number of years, and no possible substitute for ground 
wood is even in sight. There are, nevertheless, for those who will 
read them, plenty of signs that we are en the eve of a readjust- 
ment in paper making methods. For a considerable number of 
years the makers of many sorts of paper have found themselves 
in a position where' it was wood fibre or nothing else as their raw 
material. This general use of wood fibre as the only available 
basis for many branches of the industry has made for a greatly 
increased production, but has not always made for improvement 
in the quality of product. To the growing scarcity of pulp wood, 
the continually rising price and longer haul with which paper 
makers using this material are now contending, will, in a few 
years, be added the competition of new and better stocks which 
even now can be produced more cheaply than any bleached wood 
fibre. The time is rapidly approaching when we shall see upon 
the market many new paper stocks as bleached and unbleached 
pulp and half-stufifs. and these will be as readily available for 
immediate use as bleached sulphite is today. This means, of 
course, a gradual displacement of wood fibre from its present 
position of supremacy. It means also a far wider range in the 
quality and characteristics of available raw materials, as a result 
of which variety will come a broader scope for the exercise of a 
critical judgment and a greater skill on the part of the paper 
maker in the selection and manipulation of his materials. This 
condition is bound to react to the advantage of the industry gen- 
erally, and especially to the advantage of the smaller mills in the 
hands of expert and progressive manufacturers. There should 
follow a decided rise in the standard of quality, particularly in bag 
and wrapping papers and in those papers which may be expected 
to replace the cheaper grades of book, wood writing and envelope 



as now manufactured. At the same time the range of possible 
production in many mills will be extended. 

As these expectations will hardly be accepted on their face, 
it is well to inquire into the basis upon which they rest. 

Wood, as a raw material, has proved so available, convenient, 
compact, easily handled, and heretofore so cheap, that we have 
been led to overlook or ignore the immense sources of other and 
better paper stocks which lie easily within our reach. It is, there- 
fore, proposed to devote the major portion of this report to indi- 
cating what these other materials are, together with a brief state- 
ment as to their character and limitations, and what may reason- 
ably be expected of them. This statement will serve its purpose 
if it convinces you that we are not dealing with the perennial sug- 
gestions of visionaries who see a paper stock in everything which 
has a fibre, but are instead concerned with the serious proposals 
of capable technologists whose conclusions are based on careful 
stpdy. 

Let us consider first the material available in our own country 
and now wasted with our characteristic national miprovidence. 
The first in importance of these is undoubtedly the waste flax 
straw of our Northwest. The total area grown to flax for seed 
runs as high in some years as 3,700,000 acres, which means 
roughly a strip a mile wide and over 5,700 miles long. A ton 
and a half of straw to the acre is said to be a moderate yield, upon 
which basis we have over 5,000,000 tons of straw a year. This 
straw contains more than 20 per cent, of linen fibre, so that, disre- 
garding the inconsiderable amount of the fibre which is >vorked into 
tow, binder twine, and a few other similar coarse uses, there is 
here available more than 1,000,000 tons a year of the finest paper 
stock, equally suitable for the highest grades of paper as well as 
for bag and wrapping papers of a quality not now approached. It 
would be hard to find another country in which such a waste 
would be permitted. 

Flax is pre-eminently a crop for new lands, and is often the 
first crop sowed after such lands are turned over. Great crops of 
flax for seed are therefore naturally raised in Canada, particularly 
in Manitoba and the Canadian Northwest. ' Up to this time little 
or nothing has been done in the way of utilizing the fibre, although 
the Canadian flax should prove more valuable than our own by 
reason of the greater care taken in harvesting, the flax being cut 
or pulled and kept straight in sheaves while the seed is being 
separated. 

Within the last year at least three machines have been per- 
fected for separating the- short fibre which adheres to our South- 
ern cotton seed after the cotton has been ginned. An average 
cotton crop may be counted on to yield at least 600,000 tons of 
this short fibre, which now goes into cattle feed, to. the detriment 
of the latter. One meets occasionally with paper makers who 
have tried the fibre, but who almost invariablv condemn it as un-' 



worthy of serious consideration. Within the hist few weeks a 
writer in an Enghsh jovirnal stated with much positiveness that 
this cotton hull fibre was "only suitable for browns and wrap- 
pings." The real fact is that tnis hDre is easily reduced to a pure 
white stock wholly free Irom any sign of hull, and a failure to 
secure as good results from this neglected fibre as from a good 
grade of cotton rags is a reflection upon the skill of the man who 
tries to handle it rather than upon the quality of the fibre itself. 

In my report of last year I referred to the fact that on the 
average 22.750,000 toiis of cotton stalks are each year burned or 
plowed under, or otherwise wasted. These stalks have a woody 
structure which, lends itself readily to treatment by the sulphite 
process, yielding a fair proportion of fibre well suited for the pro- 
duction of paper of the lower grades. It is, of course, not teasiole 
to attempt the removal of the bark, but this is so broken up and 
distributed through the sheet as to be unobjectionable in papers 
for a wide variety of use. There are, however, undoubted difificul- 
ties in the way of the preliminary handling, transport and storage 
of the material by reason of its bulk. 

Somewhat the same difficulties are encountered in any large 
scale attempt to utilize the first class fibre which in almost unlim- 
ited amount has been shown to exist in the outer shell of the 
corn stalk. 

The exceptionally high tides which occur in the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia during the full moon of May each year, acting together 
with the melting snows from the mountains, cause the Colorado 
River to overflow its banks along its lower reaches, which are thus 
built up of rich, alluvial soil. The climate is almost tropical, the 
temperature often reaching 135 degrees in the sun. Great 
stretches of this country are covered with wild hemp, which, 
under these favoring conditions, grows luxuriantly. Many tracts 
are over 100,000 acres in extent. No data is available as to the 
yield of fibre, but hemp is known to grow to a height of 15 feet in 
eighty days, and to yield 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of actual fibre per 
acre. I need not tell you that this fibre is of the very highest 
grade for any of the purposes of paper making. 

The so called marsh hay, which is said to closely reseml^le 
esparto in structure and the paper making quality of its fibre, 
grows wild in great abundance over large areas in Canada, while 
the American wild rice, Zizana aquatica, also grows in such pro- 
fusion that 100,000 tons a year are available on the shores of the 
Canadian lakes alone. Paper making tests made in England rank 
this fibre also with esparto. 

Especially noteworthy in the developments of the year is the seri- 
ous and general revival of interest in bamboo as a source of paper 
stock. Its superlative value for this purpose was urged, you will 
remember, by Routledge in 1875 after his introduction of esparto 
into England. You may also remember that my report of last 
year refers to the very favorable conclusions as to bamboo reached 



by R. W. Sindall in his report to the British Government on avail- 
able sources of supply of paper stock in the British Colonies. 
These conclusions are now amply confirmed by Raitt, who has 
recently published the results of numerous experiments of his own 
on the mill scale in Burmah, Bengal, Malabar and Straits Settle- 
ments, and by Richmond in the laboratory of the Bureau of 
Science at Manila. Raitt finds in bamboo a really inexhaustible 
raw material. He recommends the establishment of bamboo plan- 
tations so arranged that one-third of the whole plantation shall 
be cut over every year. This will secure absolute permanence of 
growth, and, in fact, such systematic cropping will increase pro- 
duction. Raitt finds the yields of bamboo to be ii tons per acre 
where the growth was poor, i8 tons with moderate growth, and 
44 tons per acre with luxurious growth. The best yields of fibre, 
44 per cent., and the best results in treatment were secured with 
three year old- shoots. The internodal pieces alone were digested, 
the rejected nodes amounting to 8 per cent! of the total weight. 
The stems were cooked at 6o pounds pressure for ten hours, with 
30 pounds of 76 per cent, caustic per hundredweight of dry 
bamboo. The fibre bleached to good color, with 20 pounds of 
bleach per hundredweight. 

Raitt further finds that the stems were easily reduced by the 
sulphite process, giving a yield of 51 per cent, and bleaching to a 
brilliant white, with 16 pounds to the hundredweight. He esti- 
mates that in a 200 ton sulphite plant at Rangoon the cost of 
bamboo fibre will be $24.30 a ton. 

Richmond, whose excellent work in the Philippines deserves 
the highest credit, finds that it is quite unnecessary to- remove 
the nodes prior to cooking, provided the stems are first passed 
through crushing rolls and afterwards, for convenience of pack- 
ing in the digester, cut to 3 or 4 inch lengths. He obtains from 
the difi^erent varieties of bamboo yields of 40 to 43.7 per cent, of 
bleached fibre by the soda process. The sulphite process gives 
43.5 bleached fibre, which puts bamboo on about the same basis 
as wood in this regard. The unbleached sulphite was nearly as 
white as the thoroughly bleached pulp. 

The importance of these figures becomes evident when we 
consider that we have in bamboo a raw material directly com- 
parable to wood in many fespects, but with no bark to remove, 
and much more easily reduced to pulp by either the sulphite or 
soda process. Bamboo requires a weaker liquor and much less of 
it, and is reduced in less time with far less fuel consumption. A 
properly situated mill is assured of a regular supplv. with a yield 
per acre everv third year greater than that resulting from the 
cutting over of well grown spruce lands of good stand. Bamboo, 
in fact, has been known to grow 2 feet in three days in the Phil- 
inpines. It is interesting to- calculate from Raitt's figures for 
moderate growth that only about sixteen square miles is required 
to maintain indefinitely the supply of bamboo for a too ton mill. 



Two other raw materials for paper stock among those studied 
by Richmond demand special mention. These are Cogon grass 
and Abaca or manila waste. Cogon grass grows from 2 to 4 feet 
high in even stands on open lands, foot hills, and mountains in the 
I'hilippines. In content of cellulose, as well as in general com- 
position, Cogon closely resembles esparto and yields with equal 
ease to treatment. It gives a very fine, clean paper, stronger and 
with more snap than esparto. It "does not, however, bulk as well, 
but for many uses should prove even more valuable. 

The hand cleaning of manila fibre involves the production of 
much waste, while all of the several fibre stripping machines now 
on trial in the Philippines produce waste in nuich larger propor- 
tion. For every ton of merchantable manila fibre produced in the 
Philippines, more than a ton of fibrous waste is made in the 
process of hand stripping, while nearly four times as much waste 
is now lost by the methods of machine stripping. 

This Abaca waste constitutes one of the most intrinsically 
valuable raw materials anywhere available for paper makers, and 
will not be treated as a waste much longer. Richmond and others 
have shown conclusively that the Abaca waste is very easily 
reduced by alkaline treatments, and further that it bleaches readily 
and is suitable for paper of the very highest grades. The more 
general introduction of fibre cleaning machines is certain to extend 
the manila hemp industry and to greatly increase the already large 
quantity of this waste available for treatment on the spot or for 
export. The yields of fibre on the hand stripped waste are about 
42 per cent., and on the machine stripped about one-quarter less. 

It is obvious that the fibrous raw materials which we have 
been considering require somewhat dififerent treatments to meet 
their individual requirements, and that they are in most instances 
too bulky for profitable transportation. The natural line of their 
development is, therefore, the manufacture of pulp and half-stuff 
upon the spot for trans-shipment to the mills of paper consuming 
countries. The methods required are for the most part simple and 
well adapted for introduction into small local plants. 

For lack of time this report must pass by the numerous pro- 
posals made during the year for the utilization of other less prom- 
ising fibres and fibrous wastes. Mention should, however, be made 
of Perini fibre (Canhamo Braziliensis Perini) recently discov- 
ered by Dr. V. A. de Perini, of Rio de Janeiro, and now attract- 
ing considerable attention. In its essential features Perini resem- 
bles jute. 

Coming now to the narrower questions of detail in the chemi- 
cal technology of paper making, we find that the vear has been 
marked by no development of the first importance. Under an 
arrangement with the American Chemical Society, your chemist 
and his assistants have abstracted all articles appearing in our 
own or foreign journals relating to cellulose and paper makii 
A few of these call for mention in this report. 



ms. 



The discovery of a cellulose peroxide has been announced by 
Cross & Uevan, but the existence of the compound has been 
doubted, and is in fact doubtful on good chemical grounds. The 
Cross & Bevan method of analysis of fibrous substances has been 
materially improved by Dean, in so far as it relates to- the deter- 
mination of cellulose. Berge has proposed as a new test for 
ground wood a solution of 2 grams of Para Nitraniline in 100 cc. 
of hydrochloric acid, of specific gravity, 1.06. It stains lignified 
fibres a brilliant orange, passing in extreme cases into brick red. 
The reagent has the advantage of being much more permanent 
than phloroglucin. 

Ebert has studied the process of wood grinding and finds that 
a small amount of chamical change is induced by the action of 
water and the heat of friction. In hot grinding this action is 
materially increased. Steaming and boiling render a still larger 
proportion af the encrusting matter soluble. He has developed a 
process by which he claims to convert ground wood into a chemi- 
cally clean pulp resembling sulphite. 

Kirchner reports the following advantages from the use of 
hot grinding. The pulp, after being pressed to 50 per cent, air 
dry, can be preserved for a year or more without deterioration. 
The heat of grinding probably produces a temperature between 
the wood and stone sufficiently high to kill all micro-organisms. 
The pulp is whiter than cold ground pulp, and finally there is no 
trouble from clogging of the screens with rosin. 

Sulphate pulp and Kraft paper are now being made by the 
Brompton Pulp and Paper Company, at East Angus, P. 0. 

Interesting results of Canadian practice in making soda 
fibre are given by De Cew, with percentage yields and details of 
treatment, in case of spruce, hemlock and five of the more com- 
mon deciduous woods. The latter can now be reduced in about 
four hours. The shortening of time has been found to increase 
the yield and give a sounder and stronger fibre. 

There is comparatively little to report regarding the sulphite 
process, although it has been demonstrated that unusually resinous 
woods may be satisfactorily reduced by the use of liquors espe- 
cially high in free acid. The so-called turpentine recovered during 
the sulphite cook is now said to be not turpentine, but cymene. A 
t-eview of the history of the recovery of the turpentine and of 
modern practice in the sulphate process is given by Knpsel in the 
Wochenblatt. 

Bender has published in Papier Zeitung an interesting report 
on diseases caused by handling rags, and the means taken to avoid 
the danger and discomfort from the rag dust. Eichhorn. in the 
Wochenblatt, gives valuable data on the cause and loss of weight 
in cooking, beating and bleaching rags. The losses of weight 
found in practice in making the following materials into bleached 
half-stuff were: 



I'd- Cent. 

New white linen and cotton 25 

Russian linen 29 

New calico 25 

Swedish linen 29 

Strong- half linen 37.5 

Half bleached linen 29 

Bleached excelsior cellulose 5 

Colored calico 33-5 to 36 . 5 

Jwte C 50 

Bleached No. i cellulose 5 

"Half wool" 47 

Half bleached No. 2 cellulose 6.6 

Nussbauin and Ebert find, as the result of experimental 
study, that bleaching with alkaline solutions is very slow, and 
that in acid solutions the speed increases as the square of the 
acidity of the solution. Within the usual limits the speed of 
bleaching doubles for each 7° C. increase in temperature. Be- 
tween relatively wide limits the effect of bleaching is independent 
of the concentration of the hypochlorite solution. With an equal 
consumption of chlorine the samples bleached at higher tempera- 
tures are whiter. The more acid the solution the more chlorine 
is required to produce the same white, and, finally, the more acid 
the solutiou the greater the loss of fibre substance. 

As to rosin sizing, the only novelty of note is the preparation 
of dry rosin size, which in appearance closely resembles ordinary 
rosin, and which dissolves readily in hot water for use in the ordi- 
nary way. 

Weingaertner has patented (U. S. Patent 828,004) a moist- 
ure and grease proof paper prepared by saturating paper with a 
solution of casein dissolved in sulphurous acid to which a soluble 
fluoride has been added. The paper thus treated is then coated 
on one side with paraffin. A very flexible and tenacious paper 
has been brought out in France (French Patent 845.386), where 
it is made by superficially parchmentizing the sheet by a method 
which precludes action on the central layers, which remain in 
their original fibrous condition. 

Dalen, of the Koniglichen Materialpriifungsamt. has pub- 
lished the interesting and important results of a study of the 
properties, sources and tests for many kinds of spots and dirt 
appearing in paper, and outlines a scheme of procedure which in 
most cases enables the origin of the dirt or spot to be determined. 
The German authoritv. Herzberg, has made during the year sev- 
eral notable publications bearing upon the durability of paper. 
The Materialpriifuno-samt is now testing samples frotri about 400 
books and periodicals furnished bv the Librarv of the University 
of Berlin. One conspicuous instance is given of a work published 
in 1 88 1, which is now falling to pieces. T^e fibre composition 
was : 

7 



Per Ceil I. 

Linen 40 

Cotton 30 

Wood fibre 25 

Straw pulp 5 

The ash was 21 per cent. This example shows clearly that the 
fibre composition is not the only important consideration, for this 
paper was 70 per cent, rag and contained no lignified fibre. The 
physical tests are therefore shown to be quite as important as the 
composition, because the best of fibre can be so handled as to 
make the poorest of paper. In this connection it is interesting to 
note that the requirements as to the ash in "normal" papers laid 
down by the German Government in 1881 were dropped from the 
specifications of 1904. As to the propriety of this change, Herz- 
berg states that there is no^ reason why a paper containing mineral 
fillers should deteriorate any faster than one without fillers, if they 
have initially the same physical properties. 

In another communication Herzberg presents the results of 
strength and elongation tests of 162 papers of Class i, all rag 
without fillers ; 224 of Class 2, rag with not over 25 per cent, 
other pulp and not over 5 per cent, ash ; and 255 of Class 3, any 
pulp except lignified fibre and not over 15 per cent. ash. These 
papers had been lying open to the air and to a little light for 
twelve years. About 80 per cent, of all classes are found to have 
decreased about 5 per cent, in strength and about 10 per cent, in 
elongation. The small increases noted are believed to be due to 
variations in the samples and the testing machines. It is signifi- 
cant that there is no very marked difiference seen in the deteriora- 
tion of the three classes of paper, and upon the whole the results 
secured are very satisfactory as bearing upon the probable life of 
papers generally. With reference to this same important subject 
it is gratifying to note that the Committee of the Society of Arts, 
London, which made its classic report upon the deterioration of 
paper in 1898, has now been reappointed with the changes and 
additions suggested or made necessary by time, and will extend 
its study of the subject with a view to possible recommendations. 

The year has seen an unusual number of new books relating 
to paper and paper making. Among these should be mentioned : 

"The Treatment of Paper for Special Purposes," translated 
from the German by Andes. 

"The Paper Mill Chemist," by Stevens. 

Vols. Ill and IV of Beadle's "Chapters on Paper Making." 

The third and enlarged edition of Herzberg's well known 
"Papier Priifung." 

The interestina: .chronicle of the development of paper mak- 
ing in England entitled "The Paper Trade," by A. Dykes Spicer. 
and "The Encyclopedia of the Paper Industry," by J. S. Jensen, 
appearing in the Danish journal, Papier Tidende. 

8 



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